CFP: Moral Motivation: Evidence and Relevance

Deadline for abstracts: January 20, 2012 (for instructions, see below)

The relation between moral judgments and moral motivation is a central issue in ethical theory. According to motivational internalism, making a moral judgment implies being motivated to act accordingly, at least under normal circumstances. The truth of motivational internalism is highly contested, and often taken to have implications for the nature of moral emotions and moral judgments, the meaning of normative terms, and the possibility of objective truth and knowledge in morality.
    During the last two decades, various new forms of motivational internalism have raised questions both about possible sources of evidence for and against these forms, and about the metaethical relevance of a defensible internalism. Some forms seem to be straightforward empirical claims, making traditional a priori arguments for or against internalism suspect; other forms make it unclear how internalism would favor moral anti-realism over realism. (For an overview of recent work on motivational internalism, see this Analysis paper.) 
    The conference Moral Motivation: Evidence and Relevance will bring together senior and junior scholars working on both issues of evidence and issues of relevance.

INVITED SPEAKERS (abstracts available here):

James Dreier, Brown University
— Can Reasons Fundamentalism Answer the Normative Question?
Jeanette Kennett, Macquarie University
— Moral Motivation and Its Impairments: Empirical and Philosophical Approaches
Jesse Prinz, CUNY
— An Empirical Case for Emotionally Based Internalism
Michael Ridge, University of Edinburgh
— Internalism: Cui Bono?
Michael Smith, Princeton University
— Moral Judgements, Judgements about Reasons, and Motivations
Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Ohio State University
— Detecting Value with Motivational Responses
Jon Tresan, UNC Chapel Hill
— Objective Moral Realism & The Role-Individuation of Moral Judgments
Nick Zangwill, Durham University
— Essence, Agent-Causation and Motivational Externalism

INSTRUCTIONS:

Abstracts of up to 1 000 words should be submitted no later than January 20, 2012, to Gunnar Björnsson. Notifications of acceptance can be expected before the end of February.
    Selected papers from the conference will be published in a conference volume. Please indicate willingness to contribute to such a volume and have a final version of a manuscript ready by August 2012.

THE MMER PROJECT:

MMER is a research project focusing on philosophical issues regarding moral motivation. We are investigating the conceptual and empirical connections between moral opinions and moral motivation, and their implications for moral semantics, moral psychology and the objectivity of morality. The project runs from 2010 to 2012 and is based at the University of Gothenburg. MMER is financed by the Swedish Research Council and the Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science. For more information, see here.